~Luke's POV~

Luke watched as The Resolute drifted into Yavin IV's atmosphere slowly, a tang of unease sitting at the back of his throat. For some reason, his heart felt heavy, even though he was about to embark on the same journey. Albeit secretly.

Nevertheless, it still hurt to see them go, to know that everyone he had ever loved-from his clone brothers to his adoptive sister turned master- were intent on leaving them. It hurt to know that they hadn't looked back.

Luke felt a heavy warmth land on his shoulder, squeezing. He looked up to see Master Windu's eyes stuck to the ship taking off into the sky, a distant expression on his face. "They're off to fulfill their destiny, young one," he murmured, as if this destiny fulfillment thing was supposed to be a consolation.

"Yes master," he agreed. Then, as something occurred to him, he looked up at the Grand Master curiously. "Do you think they'll succeed?" He wondered. Mace's chest rose slowly, and his pupils narrowed, as if he were looking inside himself for the answer.

"I believe that your Father is the Chosen One," he began, haltingly. "I believe that everything happens for a reason, no matter how terrible it is. I believe in the endless resource and courage of the Light," then, as if waking from a dream, he met Luke's gaze and gave a wavering smile.

"But those are beliefs. I also happen to know that a certain Millennium Falcon is prepped to depart, hidden in a cave on the mountainside. To go after them, I assume?" Luke was so astounded that he could only choke on his next inhale. Mara gave a start. Leia blinked a couple of times as if she had just been struck, and Han and Lando's mouths dropped open.

"Master!" he squeaked, as their eyes sprang up to his face in alarm.

"It is not!" Han blurted, far too quickly to be believable.

"I thought that something about this entire situation was going a bit too… Smoothly," a new voice broke into the fray. Luke swiveled on his heel in time to see Rebel Leader Bail Organa join them on the landing pad, his eyes sweeping the mostly busy hangar bay.

He stopped on the other side of Mara, his hands folded behind his back. Luke paled. They were caught. Leia's voice was thick with defeat. "How did you know?" She asked, deflating. Master Windu hummed deep in his throat.

"The Force is a powerful ally," was all he would say.

"And besides, you all are too predictable. I'm merely surprised you didn't sneak into the vents this time," Bail snorted with a nostalgic smile.

"That was our first plan," Lando admitted in a sour voice. He crossed his arms petulantly, eyes going downcast. "Did you tell Obi-wan?" he asked. Luke wondered why it mattered now. They weren't going after their family. They may never even see them again.

"There are certain things one does not tell Obi-wan," Mace informed them, as he turned on his heel. "Chief amongst those things that his sons are planning to defy his direct orders. Again," the words sons made something in Luke's heart snap. His fists clenched.

This renewed spark in his heart made him bold. "We won't be left behind, Master," he told Master Windu.

"Padawan…"

"We are the children of the Chosen," he said, swiveling around so that he was speaking still to the Masters back, but while he did his voice steeled to grim resignation. "We have to be there with them. It is our destiny."

"Luke…"

"And more than that," Leia was suddenly at his right side, adding her own intense heat to his smoldering flame of defiance. In that moment, Luke had never before felt more like a Skywalker in his life. "It is our duty."

Then Mara was standing at his left, chin jutted out with back-breaking rigidity. "It is the oath we took to our Masters, to the Jedi and to the Light," Lando and Han ended their small chain with crossed arms and set mouths.

"You can't stop us," Han informed Windu. "This is our life."

"And our choice," Lando added.

Silence. Bail cocked an eyebrow at Master Windu, deferring responsibility of their well-being to him. After a moment, Master Windu's shoulders shook, and small sounds of mirth escaped. Luke was flabbergasted.

Was he…. Laughing?

I didn't know he could do that, he thought dazedly.

Well, now we've seen everything, Leia agreed in his head.

"Mace?" Bail asked, sounding as surprised as they were. Master Windu turned around and if the small tear he was wiping from his eyes was any indication, he had found their display just there very amusing. Luke didn't know if he should be offended or not.

Mara certainly was. "Hey!" She cried, affronted. "We were serious!"

Mace only shook his head, still chuckling. "I have met your parents, young ones," he reminded them. "I'm well aware that you were serious. I'd have been very disappointed had you not been," then, sobering. He turned to the rebel leader. "Bail, would you give us a moment please?" He asked politely.

Bail looked relieved to be asked. "Of course," he agreed with quick relief. "Force forbid the other younglings get these same ideas into their heads. They might begin to riot on you old friend," he shook his head sympathetically. Then, patting Mace on the shoulder he walked away.

As soon as he was gone, Leia opened her mouth. "Master," Master Windu held up a hand, effectively quieting her.

"Hush," he ordered. "And listen to me very carefully. In approximately fifteen minutes, The Resolute will enter into hyperspace and you'll never catch up to them."

"So?" Han asked, taken aback.

Master Windu let a tiny quirk of the lips betray his inner amusement. "So you had better hurry," he dryly declared.

"Wait, you're letting us go?" Mara gasped.

"Yes and no. I am allowing you to go for two reasons. The first is because you all are correct. I can feel it in the Force," his eyes gleamed with wisdom hard won. "This is your destiny too."

Luke's chest felt stripped of innumerable weight. He and Mara exchanged celebratory glances as Han and Lando whooped and gave each other high fives excitedly. He exhaled deeply and turned to give Master Windu a low bow.

"Thank you Master," he breathed.

Leia crossed her arms, eyeing the older man suspiciously. "And the second reason?" she demanded.

Master Windu actually looked doubtful for a minute before groaning. "Ugh... Obi-wan is going to kill me for this. Not to mention Ventress, but in order for me to allow you to partake in this blatant insubordination," he leaned forward, conspiratorially. Luke's gut clenched. He had a very, very bad feeling about this. "I need you to do something for me first."

~Anakin's POV~

The ride in the cockpit was awkward, to say the least. Though Anakin was at the station (or, had been forced to be pilot) that normally most appealed to him, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck tingle with disquiet. He had been through plenty of awkward situations. He had been to diplomatic incidents and paraded through a town where the people glared at him, but those were expected in a Jedi's life. Those he could deal with, but this?

He felt as if the silence was suffocating him.

It was not necessarily anything that any of them were doing, exactly. The Council had picked the best groups in the Order, yes, but in doing that they had compelled already established team ethics to coexist with one another. And that made for tense times. And he was not the only one who felt it either.

The pilot's seat no longer seemed as comfortable, and perhaps half of that reason was that they were piloting a cruiser, so while he managed the helm, the others were down in the stations that the clones would normally be in, silently doing their duties.

Ahsoka had taken co-pilot after a ten second debate in which Obi-wan had nearly burst out laughing when she offered it to him, exclaiming that even after all these years, he still hated flying. Besides, he had reasoned, she was the better of the two pilots anyway. The aforementioned better pilot was currently tapping at some buttons indifferently, trying to stay occupied. Anakin could see in her eyes that her mind was elsewhere.

Next to her, Padme's worry for the twins shouted like a cavalry in the silence of the Force. His wife was frowning at the console, anxiously biting her lip. Anakin wished that there was something that he could do to comfort her, but knew that anything he said would only cause her to worry about him next.

He could hardly stand the sympathy and love he saw shining in her eyes whenever his eyes skimmed to her neck, where the bruises of his strangulation had faded but his memory painted them vividly.

How long until she stopped believing in him? How long until that love ran out? Intrepid was focused on a data-pad, eyes skimming the data as if it would help to know information about a place when it might be completely opposite to their own galaxy. Cody was studying Intrepid from the corner of his eyes, trying very much to be inconspicuous.

The others wore similar expression of boredom and/or discomfort as they sat silently in their seats, minds wandering over the mission or the ones that they had left back home, whichever seemed to catch the fancy. Anakin sighed. In the vastness of space, the Force was spread out like a large net, empty of life or activity. Sort of like this cruiser.

Glancing at the radar, he frowned and gently tapped at the readings. They had been flickering on and off since take-off. Anakin was not overly worried about it, but if it would give someone something to do…It might alleviate this muffling silence, a silence that only served to remind him that he was the true traitor in the room…

"Ahsoka," she perked up so quickly that he knew she had been waiting for something else to catch her attention. Large, predatory blue eyes swiveled to watch him keenly. "The radar systems are mucking up," he told her. "And in about an hour, we'll be ready to go into hyper drive. Want to go see…?" He had not finished before she was out of her seat and racing towards the control rooms. Jinx chuckled as he watched her go, eyes affectionate.

Anakin remembered being that in-love, to the point where everything the other person did seemed funny and admirable to you. At some point, he still had that same feeling for Padme.

But the Dark Side blinds everything, even love. Anakin's heart dropped as his thoughts dragged him back into the black waters of his depression. As if he had suddenly plummeted over a cliff, his emotions staggered into deeper darkness. Anakin had to bite back a groan at the pain that suddenly assaulted his heart. It was getting harder for him to be positive nowadays…

Anakin perked up as the Force abruptly wrenched him out of his morose thoughts. He glanced around him, and saw some of the others perk up as well. So they had felt the jolt in the Force as well, the tiniest shifting of change in the otherwise empty atmosphere of space.

Anakin narrowed his eyes. Trouble, already? "What was that?" Ventress was the first one to speak up, eyes flicking from one face to another as if unsure whether she was supposed to have spoken or not.

"I don't know," Nava said. "But I don't like it," Anakin nodded, trying to ground himself into the machinations of the ship enough so that he could feel if there was anything that needed fixing there.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure Ahsoka will find it," Intrepid assuaged her old mentor. At Ahsoka's name, Jinx sighed and shook his head, standing.

"I'd go better make sure she does not get into any trouble, then," he surmised. Anakin felt a surge of anger. As if this child could do anything to help the girl that he had raised and trained? Ahsoka was more than capable of taking care of herself. Mind your thoughts; Anakin, that was from Obi-wan, who was also giving him a slightly startled look through blind eyes.

Anakin instantly reigned in the easy anger, noting with bitterness and guilt that the Dark Side never did let go of its slaves. "We're about to go into hyper-drive," he told Jinx softly, taking the throttle in his hand quickly to escape Obi-wan's worried gaze. He did not want to burden his master. It seemed that Obi-wan was constantly worrying over him however, as if the very mention of Anakin's name inspired more of the concern that the Jedi Master did not need.

"Got it," Jinx called over his shoulder as he departed the cock-pit. The room descended into a suffocated silence as all eyes turned to Anakin's hand upon the throttle, the hand that would take them into a different galaxy, into an unknown.

The hand that would flash them into the Nexus Route.

"What could account for the disturbance this far into space?" Padme asked, knowing from experience that whatever they had felt and was bad enough to make them uneasy was something that could inhibit their new mission. Anakin wondered when she had discovered so much about the Force.

"Oh, the usual. Asteroids, pirates, black holes, giant burning pieces of space junk, those types of things," Obi-wan predicted with a shake of his head as Anakin peered into the limitless amount of stars twinkling at him from the windows, the empty expanse of planets and moons and suns that all waved farewell as they prepared to depart. "One day I'm going to see them all!" He had not yet seen the entire galaxies worth of stars and planets, but he was about to explore a new one. Did that count?

After so many years, I'm going to see a whole new galaxy mom. Wish you could be here, Anakin closed his eyes, and tightened his fingers around the throttle. Maybe he didn't wish Shmi were here to see his weakness. Would she even recognize the husk that had become Anakin Skywalker anymore? Would she have given up on him by now? Was that what he deserved?

Somehow he thought it was. He knew that he was trembling from the way his muscles had suddenly gone cold. "Anakin?" He ignored the voices asking him if he was alright because he wasn't.

It was always the mind that hurt someone the most, never what was happening, but how the mind took it. So what do you do if your mind is trying to turn against you? They could turn back now. They could return to the Jedi Temple and continue their lives, perhaps even leave the Jedi. They could be free, he could escape, his family might have a chance.

It would be so simple to turn back, so easy to give up because after all, no one had ever done this, so what made him and his family eligible for greatness and sacrifice? For the impossible burden of heroism? "We could…" he gulped, shame flooding through him at what he was about to say, the pure cowardice of his next statement. But he had to say it. "We could turn back," silence reigned on board. Anakin waited for shock, condemnation or agreement. He was not sure which one he deserved more.

At last, Rex spoke. "We could," he agreed quietly, and Anakin felt the tremor of his fear through the Force and was shamefully glad that he was not the only one apprehensive.

"But should we?" Intrepid added logically, large emerald eyes flicking from face to face as if to test their loyalty and endurance.

"We have a duty," Cody stated immediately.

"An obligation," Padme added.

"Our honor," Obi-wan and Nava reminded them in unison, and it seemed that these things would be the last word on it until Ventress spoke up.

"We have our children," she reminded them, and Anakin saw in the faces of the other that this was an outlandish proposition for them. He felt surprise himself. A Jedi did not think of personal costs when preparing for a mission, only the outside.

"We have an obligation to see them grow up. Our honor dictates that we stay alive long enough to help them," she glanced up with pale blue eyes that were broth determined and grave in the light. "This isn't just about any code. It isn't about honor. This isn't just about being heroes. This is about being people. What would good people do?"

They all stared at the normally reticent ex-Sith with shock, and also realization. Indeed, this war had stretched them past their limits and into breaking points because they were playing different roles. For all their success, they were not just Jedi anymore, not even merely parents. They were people, and as people had a right to fear, to doubt, to loathe, laugh and turn back.

Anakin met the eyes of his wife. All he saw was faith. She would not turn back, as much as she wanted too. He glanced around, and slowly, saw the same thing in the eyes of the others. They fought for peace-as people, yes-but that did not make them any less responsible for the fight.

"We were not born to suffer," Obi-wan told them, summing up what they were all thinking. "But to prove that suffering can be overcome," blind eyes stared at Anakin, sightless and yet all-seeing. "Not born to cure evil, but to prove that evil can be cured. So," he cocked an eyebrow. "Let's prove it, as Jinx and Ahsoka would say," they chuckled.

They weren't just good people, they were great people.

Anakin nodded. Yes, master. "Prepare to enter hyper-space," he announced, and before he could think again on the subject, he pulled the throttle down and closed his eyes against the blinding light. He was going forward, but if he meant to face his fear, he did not mean to face it with his eyes, but see it with his heart.

He meant to prove that one could see blind.